And It Makes Me Sweat

So there I was standing in front of the Shelves Of Plenty the other day after spending a week away in Snowdonia without any music at all, just trying to work out what I’d like to hear.

I reached for a bit of an anomaly* in the 1537, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds Black Star Dancing.

I was an early Oasis fan, bought all the early singles, saw them very early on and then lost interest fast when the second LP came out and they became both irritatingly ubiquitous and showily proletarian, losing all their energy and remaining charm amidst all manner of boorish antics.

I was glad when they split up, the brothers Gallagher throwing various hissy fits at each other and paid absolutely no attention to any of their subsequent music. I filed Liam Gallagher*^ under ‘great voice, occasionally’ and Noel Gallagher^* under ‘musically talented, lacks sparkle’ and went on my merry way.

So in 2019 when Mrs 1537 forced me at nailfile point to listen to Black Star Dancing I already knew I wouldn’t like it^^ and that it would just sound like Oasis but crappier.

Not only was it so good, I couldn’t even pretend I didn’t like it but it even had a superb video, tapping into a whole universe of hideous 1970’s British variety shows on TV. Damn.

The title track of the EP is, much like your humble correspondent, slinky, smooth and sexy, with an incessant beat and without cheesy disco stylings. ‘Black Star Dancing’ is that rarest bird, organically produced guitar dance music, its bloody great too.

Okay so the lyrics aren’t the greatest, but lets face it they never are with the Gallaghers, the whole point of this is the seductively poised groove and there really is something to savour in the delivery of the line ‘and it makes me sweat’. It is really excellent, especially the slightly ZZ Topical guitar solo part way through.

The rest of the Black Star Dancing EP is taken up with two other new tracks and two remixes of the title track.

Dealing with the B-side, the 12″ version of ‘Black Star Dancing’ contains a whole additional 18 seconds of music, to be fair it does sound as though the bass has been turned up (a very good thing) and it does sound punchier to these tired old ears. The 10-minute ‘Reflex Revision’ is fine too, sounding even more ZZ Toppish around the guitar solo mark as the remixed drums sound rather synthetic at that point too. It’s fine, but it lacks the alluring slinkiness of the original.

The two other tracks ‘Rattling Rose’ and ‘Sail On’ are both very listenable as well. The former is a spritely genteel shuffle with a nice vocal by Mr G and the latter is a rainy-yet-steel-drummy number with a lovely melody.

I really must stop actually listening to music, rather than just relying on my prejudices, it can’t be healthy all this open mindedness.

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My copy of Black Star Dancing is a nice 12″ on pink vinyl with very good sound quality. I do like the EP as a format, as long as artists don’t just stuff them with leftover live tracks and other shite they found down the back of the recording studio sofa.

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*not to be confused with one of those tentacle** sprouting underwater plant things.

**not to be confused with a bollock.

*^also not to be confused with a bollock.

^*generally less of a bollock.

^^file me under ‘bollock, Welsh’.